The invention relates to a cardan shaft drive for a transmission, in particular, for the distributor gear of a motor vehicle with all-wheel drive, in which the cardan shaft passes through the hollow hub of the drive pinion of the gear and is connected via a cardan joint rearwards to the hub of the drive pinion.
Such a universal drive or cardan shaft drive is already known (DE-OS 2,613,656). Its aim is to obtain, within a comparatively close arrangement of motor and gear block, on the one hand, and distributor gear on the other hand, an adequate length of the cardan shaft. In this case, however, the cardan shaft consists of two portions usually inserted one in the other in telescopic manner and lying within the hollow hub of the drive pinion of the gear, thus requiring a greater hub or pinion diameter. Because of the resulting increased peripheral speed of the meshing gears, a greater pinion diameter leads to a higher noise level and, for a given transmission ratio, to an increase in the overall dimensions and weight of the distributor gear. If the hub inner diameter is reduced in order to reduce the pinion reference diameter, the telescopic cardan shaft will have inadequate clearance within the hollow pinion hub, i.e., the available pivot angle is reduced. Furthermore, in the known construction the driving shaft portion and the returning shaft portion are disposed on the same side, i.e., the gear side, of the cross-like coupling member. Hence the plane of the cross-like coupling member, which includes the pivot axis of the cardan shaft, is therefore relatively remote from the gear, further reducing the available pivot deflection of the cardan shaft within the hollow hub of the drive pinion.